India: Cultivating Greener Coverage

Share This Page:

In India, Knight International worked with TERI, one of the world's premier environmental research organizations, to raise the level of environmental reporting in a country seriously affected by global warming. Along with TERI, Knight Fellow Arul Louis held a summit on the environment for top editors and convinced many to expand coverage. He also partnered with the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) and other media groups to incorporate reporting on the environment into all beats, from business to entertainment and sports.

HIGHLIGHTS

Worked with local news organization to produce stories on the environment in Hindi, Tamil and other languages.

Held a "Green to Greenbacks" program that gave business journalists the skills to write about carbon training and other complex issues related to climate change.

Developed cell-phone system for delivery of pollution alerts by the Indo-Asian News Service.

Created climate-change glossaries for the media in Assamese and Tamil.

Our Stories

When the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) sent longtime journalist Arul Louis to boost reporting on climate change in India, he knew he faced a challenge. In the media of India, one of the developing world’s biggest and fastest growing economies, the topic of climate change has rarely bubbled to the surface.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Arul Louis discusses media and climate change with Dr. R.K. Pachauri, director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), a New Delhi-based organization that focuses on sustainable development. On Aug. 31, Dr. Pachauri was reelected chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel, which Dr. Pachauri has led since 2002, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S.

What help do journalists want when they cover climate change and development? And what do leaders who help shape global policies on climate change say is the media’s role?

To find out, the International Center for Journalists' Knight International Journalism Fellowships and The Energy and Resources Institute brought journalists and climate-change leaders together at an Editors' Consultation in New Delhi on Saturday, Feb.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Arul Louis spoke about "Climate Change, Development, Democracy and the Media" at the Athens Summit 2008 Global Climate and Energy Security. He was one of the six speakers at the session on "Journalism and the Environment: Motivating the Public Opinion."

The conference brought together senior government officials, international civil servants, corporate leaders, financiers, academic and market analysts from the energy and environmental communities.

Blogs

Can India’s theory-heavy journalism education face the challenges from the country’s media explosion? A group of young journalists from Indo-Asian News Service discussed media education and the emerging new media with Alberto Ibarguen, the president and CEO of the John S. and James L.

Climate change is not all about looming disasters. It's also about business: There's money to be made in helping fight the effects of climate change under programs known as clean development mechanism. Just one element, carbon markets, generated trades worth $64 billion (or about Rs 2,560 billion). The Energy Resources Institute and the Knight International Journalism Fellowships Program of the International Center for Journalists organized a seminar for business and environment reporters and editors on this complex subject.

Journalists at the Editors' Consultation on Climate Change in New Delhi on Feb. 9.
The journalists at a recent round table that brought them face to face with key leaders who shape global climate change policies discussed the problems they face covering the issues and suggested ways to help them better cover the beat.

ICFJ's Knight International Journalism Fellowships and The Energy and Resources Institute recently brought together key leaders who shape climate change policies and the coverage of the topic to discuss the role of the media and the problems in reporting about the subject.

Move over Hatfields and McCoys. It's the Changers and Warmers – as in Climate Change and Global Warming – who are having the big feud.

Is Global Warming the right name for the phenomenon now taking place or is Climate Change the more appropriate one? Is Change just a politically motivated, watered down term meant to lull people? Or is Warming an inadequate, too narrowly focused appellation?

It's a hotly debated subject and it is relevant for me in an unusually cold New Delhi while I prepare for a meeting of editors on – well, whatever is happening to the climate, the globe ...

Multimedia

In India, journalists will be able to have unprecedented resources aimed to improve environmental coverage. Along with Knight Fellow Arul Louis, the New Delhi-based Indo-Asian News Service has developed and launched a post-graduate-level professional school for journalists that focuses on coverage of issues related to poverty and development; and training underprivileged populations to develop community oriented news coverage.